January 28, 2011

Ray Stevens and the TSA...

Hello all the Ray Stevens fans!! This is hot off the presses...well, 5 hours ago...but it's still very recent. It's an interview that Ray gave earlier today on KMOX radio in St. Louis promoting his latest song. I found out about it through Twitter and then I Googled "KMOX + Ray Stevens" and among the results was a link to a radio interview held today with Charlie Brennan.

I happened to enjoy the interview...Ray talked about some of his past recordings and his stay in Branson, Missouri. Political correctness was brought up which often becomes a topic of conversation in Ray's interviews given how some out there want to label some of his songs as being "politically incorrect" when there's no malice or vicious intentions behind any of his song's origins. The fact that "Ahab the Arab" is comical and an Arab is the focal point enrages some people. Also, the pronunciation of Arab as "ay-rab" instead of "air-ub" also enrages some people out there. Let's get real, though...Ahab and "ay-rab" rhyme...Ahab doesn't rhyme with "air-ub"...case closed, end of controversy.

Meanwhile, back to the interview...at the 4 minute 19 second mark, Ray and the host begin to talk about "The Skies Just Ain't Friendly Anymore", the brand new Ray Stevens song about airport security and the TSA. The audio may stop, since it did for me, and if that happens you'll of course have to replay it and fast-forward to the point where it stopped so pay attention to the time clock in the lower right side of the clip. The interview includes phone calls to Ray and all of it is sandwiched between roughly 18-19 minutes.

The host, Charlie Brennan, plays the song during the interview. At the time of this writing the single hasn't been made available for purchase yet...but Ray mentioned that it'll become available on his web-site and other places on-line in the near future. My guess is it'll become available next week but that's just my guess. A lot of us were hoping that Ray would have a musical response to the TSA and the invasive security practices that are going on in the airports nationwide and in this song he delivers a home-spun tale of a couple who experience hands-on airport security. The link indicates that this song is on his latest collection, We The People, but it isn't part of that particular collection. Nonetheless for those who don't have the We The People CD you should get it because it's chock full of political and patriotic material including his latest string of music video hits: "We The People", "Caribou Barbie", "Throw the Bums Out!", "Come to the USA", "The Global Warming Song", and an earlier song, the patriotic "Thank You". In addition to those songs there's "The Fallen Ones", "Fly Over Country", "We Are the Government", "The Solar Powered Song", and "Dear Andy Griffith" among many more.

As I mentioned, there's not been a release date set for "The Skies Just Ain't Friendly Anymore".

The song is so new that I don't have any information on who wrote it and if it'll be on any future collection of songs. Once again, the brand new Ray Stevens song is called "The Skies Just Ain't Friendly Anymore". The Ray Stevens interview will be the third audio clip in the following link.

FYI: Ray skewered political correctness in his direct-to-video movie, Get Serious, in 1995. It often comes up for sale on eBay. It's hilarious! For those who've never seen the movie it's 110 minutes...1 hour, 50 minutes...and it's an actual movie but there's music videos inserted throughout as the story moves along. In the link I provided there's a close-up of his video, the front and back cover, and on the back there's screen-caps on a role of film. We see Ray in character as Gitarzan chatting with Jerry Clower; Ray dressed as Ahab the Arab; Ray as psychiatrist Sickmind Fraud decked out in Napoleon attire; Ray as a Calcutta rug salesman; and Ray as a Woogie Indian (a fictional tribe, of course!). I'm sure that eBay link will expire at some point once the item is either bought or the seller takes it off the market and if that happens you can always Google the video or look it up on eBay by other seller's. Ironically there's not a DVD version...so for now the only way to see the movie is on VHS.

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About Me

I'm a big fan of what's called classic country music. I love the HEE-HAW television program and I like watching vintage cartoons. I have four blogs...the main one is devoted to Ray Stevens. My Ray Stevens blog is written from a fan's perspective. The opinions and expressions discussed in this blog are of my own creation and should not be taken as representation of Ray Stevens and his office staff. I'm simply a dedicated, though opinionated, fan of Ray's who likes discussing his music and career. This fan-created blog page is something that I started when I got fed up with the lack of accurate information about Ray Stevens that was circulating on the internet.

2012

The Encyclopedia of Recorded Comedy Music became available on February 28th; It's an impressive set featuring 9-CD's and a booklet; There are 108 recordings altogether and the booklet gives in-depth detail about each of the songs and their impact on society; Ray covers practically all the major comedy/novelty songs that have been recorded over the last 60 plus years; It's a marvelous collection!!

2014

Ray's memoir, Nashville, is a great book! If you don't have a copy I suggest you purchase one...any fan of Ray Stevens should get this book.

2016

Ray's recording, "Dear America", demonstrates that America is still the greatest country on Earth regardless of internal conflicts and imperfections; A loving tribute to the country and a defiant plea that the country's values and traditions should still continue to be championed and fought for; Excellent recording!

2017

Season One DVD of Ray's television series; It contains the first 13 episodes broadcast on local PBS stations from earlier this year; These episodes originally aired on RFD-TV but they were repeated on PBS stations starting this past January; Some local PBS stations aired all 26 episodes from the RFD run while other local PBS stations aired the first 13 episodes and then began airing the PBS exclusives which became available over the summer months; Future DVD releases are expected.

2017

Season Two of the Ray Stevens CabaRay Nashville series; This volume consists of episodes guest starring the likes of Bill Anderson, Con Hunley, Williams and Ree, Leroy Van Dyke, and many more!! A perfect companion to Season One; Each season contains 13 half hour episodes.

2018

The Ray Stevens CabaRay Showroom officially opened to the public on January 18, 2018; This date is signifcant in the career of Ray Stevens in that it's the date he arrived in Nashville in 1962; The facility houses an entire array of entertainment from the main showroom to a piano bar, a gift shop, and it also houses his recording studios for audio and video productions; The upcoming Sixth Season of his PBS television series, CabaRay Nashville, is being taped at the showroom; These episodes represent the first to be taped at the venue.